This invention relates to rotary internal combustion engines which run on such fuels as diesel and gasoline
The first rotary device was invented by Romelli in the late 16th century. This rotary unit had a circular rotor and mounted in the rotor were four vanes. When water was applied to one side of the rotor it started turning the unit. Since then rotary internal combustion engines have been developed and have met with some success. However many rotary internal combustion engines have not been successful commercially and even now such engines are not in wide use. In some of these engines, a close tolerance between the inner wall and the rotor edges had to be maintained or leakage of gases from one chamber to the next would occur resulting in poor performance.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,176,665 issued Apr. 6, 1965 to L. Macarrulla there is disclosed a rotary internal combustion engine comprising a generally cylindrical stator or housing in which is rotatably mounted a rotor. The rotor is rotatably mounted by means of two opposed shaft sections that extend from opposite sides of the stator. Two pairs of vanes or blades are mounted in radially extending slots formed in the rotor at 90 degree intervals. Rods extend between the vanes of each pair, the ends of these rods being slidable in bores formed in the vanes. A seal or packing element is mounted in the outer end of each vane and is biased outwardly by a spring.
The present invention provides a rotary internal combustion engine which is relatively simple in its construction and reliable. The present engine has improved performance compared to known piston type engines and the use of the present engine can reduce the amount of resulting pollution compared to existing piston engines. The present invention can be constructed with a housing with a substantially circular rotor chamber. The housing is not difficult or expensive to manufacture and, although some machining of the interior surface of the housing is required, this can be readily accomplished with standard, known, milling machines.
Further with the use of the engine constructed in accordance with the invention, the outer ends of the vanes in the rotor closely follow the inner circumferential wall of the housing at all points during a revolution of the rotor. This is accomplished without undue or excessive wear between the outer end of each vane and the circumferential wall of the housing.